New Neighbourhoods, New Citizens? Challenging ‘Community’ as a Framework for Social and Moral Regeneration under New Labour in the UK

Abstract

Abstract The article asserts that a model of ‘community’ was used by the UK's New Labour government as a normative rationale for the regeneration and governance of designated urban spaces. The goal of this article is to offer a critical examination of the basis and application of this rationale, arguing that it inscribed aspects of social and urban policy with an anaemic meaning of ‘community’ which foreclosed the multiplicities, tensions and differences of the local. In particular, the article will argue that in seeking to empower ‘cohesive’ and ‘sustainable’ communities, policy circumscribed local voices and obscured the complex interplay that constitutes local life worlds. It will offer a grounded three‐part critical review of the depoliticized account of ‘community’ propagated by New Labour and argue for a more nuanced analysis of the neighbourhood as an unstable field of social exchange that problematizes attempts at ‘empowerment’ and neighbourhood management. Résumé Le gouvernement du New Labour britannique s’est servi d’un modèle de ‘communauté’ comme logique normative pour la régénération et la gouvernance d’espaces urbains définis. Offrant un examen critique du fondement et de l’application de cette logique, l’article avance que celle‐ci a marqué certains aspects des politiques publiques sociales et urbaines d’une signification anémique de la ‘communauté’ qui exclut les multiplicités, tensions et différences propres au local. En visant une autonomie de communautés ‘homogènes’ et ‘pérennes’, l’action publique a notamment limité les prises de parole locales et embrouillé les interactions complexes qui constituent les univers de la vie locale. L’article propose une étude critique motivée en trois parties du récit dépolitisé de la ‘communauté’ diffusé par le New Labour. De plus, il défend une analyse plus nuancée du quartier en tant que champ instable d’échange social, qui met en question les tentatives de gestion des quartiers et d’autonomisation par empowerment.

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